MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- State Republicans are pushing back against national curriculum standards with proposed legislation that would repeal part of the state's existing curriculum and seek to block federal policy makers from student and teacher data.

Identical bills introduced last week in the House and Senate would overturn the State Board of Education’s adoption of Common Core State Standards developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

If approved, Alabama would become the sixth state to reject all or part of the voluntary standards developed through a state-led initiative to bring diverse state curricula into alignment and "provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn," according to the NGA.

State Republicans have criticized the standards as a precursor to a federal takeover of K-12 education since the Obama administration announced in 2009 that states competing for certain U.S. Department of Education grants would be scored, in part, on whether they adopted the common core.

"With the beginning of a more expanded federal role in common core --
especially when they began talking about sanctioning states that didn't
adopt the so-called voluntary standards -- that's when it was time to
get out," said Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Pike Road, the bill’s Senate sponsor.

"The last thing we need is to involve ourselves in a process like common core and give the federal government a way to drive the education agenda here in Alabama."

The proposed legislation would also forbid the state from spending any money on a Statewide Longitudinal Tracking System, a program incentivized by USDE grants and intended to enhance the ability of states to manage and analyze education data, including individual student records.

Though Alabama’s statewide data system does not currently use unique student
identifiers, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Other provisions would forbid the state department of education from sharing with the USDE any student or teacher data that is not required for basic administrative needs or compliance with USDE regulations, unless the data is for a grant application.

Even then, the USDE would be required to agree in writing that the data would not be used for research and that it would be destroyed once the grant evaluation is completed.

Brewbaker said those provisions would prevent "social engineers in Washington" from using schools to collect data on how students’ families "feel about various issues."

"They don’t want just academic data. They want all this attitudinal data about how kids feel about things, because they’ve got a bigger a agenda than just academics," he said.

The legislation would leave the state a loophole if the USDE declines to comply with the proposed guidelines.

State agencies could provide teacher and student records, if they are forced to, but would be required to notify the parents or guardians of every impacted student in writing and include the identity and contact information of the USDE official who "demands" the data.

The legislation would also usurp some authority from the Alabama Board of Education, which governs public education in the state, forbidding the board from taking any action that "cedes any measure of control to entities outside the state" without approval from the Legislature and a public hearing.

In response to the bills, State Superintendent of Education Thomas Bice said he was "quite concerned" during a board meeting last week.

"We’ll work closely with the sponsors to try to conform and pull people together to focus on what the real problems are, not necessarily what the standards are," he said.

Bice identified the problem as "the overreach from those beyond our borders."

Meanwhile, District 8 School Board Member Mary Scott Hunter said she believes the bills are part of a "coordinated attack on American education" and that blocking the collection of data would hinder the school system.

"If you don’t collect data, you don’t mine it, you don’t use it as a tool, it’s like driving a car without wheels. It’s impossible to do," she said.

According to Hunter, teacher and student data is already protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

If the bills are enacted as is, the legislation could impact the state’s ability to win grants under the USDE’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top program.

A keystone of President Obama’s education policy, the program was created to spur innovation in K-12 education. State applicants are scored based on whether they have implemented certain educational policies.

Adopting the common core is worth 40 points and implementing a longitudinal tracking system is worth 24 points of the total 500 points available.

Federal funding is also available through the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems Grant Program, but Alabama is one of only three states not receive such a grant to date, according to National Standard for Education Statistics.

It remains unclear how the legislation would impact the state’s curriculum.

Alabama is a local curriculum state, meaning curriculum is developed by local school boards and principals and the state board sets the minimum standards of what students should learn and when.

Over objections from incoming Gov. Robert Bentley, the state board adopted the common core for math and English language arts in 2010.

In a letter to the board delivered by Brewbaker, Bentley requested the board postpone the vote until his policy team could thoroughly review standards.

"If you do vote and pass these standards, I go on record as opposing this action," he wrote.

The math standards took effect in August 2012 and English standards are set to take effect in August of this year.

The governors association has not yet released standards for other subjects yet. Like most states to adopt the common core, Alabama has individualized the standards to meet the state’s needs.

According to Malissa Valdes-Hubert, public information manager for the state department of education, roughly 15 percent of the standards adopted were Alabama-specific.

The board took steps to assuage concern over the common core in 2011, passing a resolution reaffirming the standards and renaming them Alabama’s College- and Career-Ready Standards.